Undergraduate Course: Topics in the History of Modern Science and Medicine (STIS10015)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course invites students to engage with topics of current scholarly importance in the modern history of science and medicine while developing research and analysis skills in these fields. Students will interrogate recent scholarship, consider canonical and emerging methodologies, examine historiographical controversies, and explore disciplinary borderlands as an induction into honours-level study in the history of science and medicine. |
| Course description |
How do science and medicine change society and the world? How do society and the world change science and medicine? What does it mean for scientific and medical knowledge to be, as a former Edinburgh historian subtitled his influential essay collection, "Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority" (Shapin 2010)
This course introduces students to the distinctive scholarly traditions of the history of modern science and medicine and aims to make the field's rich body of methods and debates useful and applicable. This honours level seminar invites students to develop a critical understanding and capacity for analysis in these fields. Every year this course will bring students to the forefront of current scholarship on a particular topic in depth (see below), exploring what it means to pursue open scholarly questions in a vibrant academic discipline.
Students will encounter and practice canonical and emerging methods, frameworks, and debates in the history of science and medicine. They will work collaboratively to engage and contextualise the current literature and will develop skills in the historical analysis of modern science and medicine. The course's content will be relevant to a range of degree subjects and learning goals and will connect to contemporary questions about science and medicine in society. Class discussions and directed learning will equip students to consider open questions and unresolved challenges in the field.
The course is discussion based with an expectation of regular independent reading as preparation for collaborative exploration.
2023-24 Topic: This year's topic is data and information as subjects and tools of historical inquiry. What has the history of the census to do with predictive policing? How have classification schemes such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) shaped algorithmic approaches to medical care? What is the relationship between libraries, laboratories, and clinics? And what has the nineteenth century avalanche of printed numbers to do with the impact of Big Data on scientific research? Data and information have been a recurring focus of some of the most exciting and transformative scholarship in the history of science and medicine, including a variety of recent works that we will engage alongside major earlier contributions.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | History of Science and History of Western Medicine are recommended as pre-honours preparation but these are not a requirement. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 4 humanities or social science courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Explain and evaluate current issues in the historiography of science and medicine.
- Identify and critically examine major themes in modern science and medicine.
- Discuss and contextualize current literature in the history of science and medicine.
- Collaboratively engage peers in historical inquiry using methods and frameworks from the historiography of science and medicine.
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Reading List
These will vary annually with the topic.
https://edin.ac/3Fd7Yk0 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
The course encourages curiosity for learning (encountering the history of science and medicine as a living field of inquiry), including local and global engagement (reflected in the sources and methods studied), creative and collaborative research (in discussion-based examination of the history of science and medicine), critical and reflective thinking (in engagement with current interpretive debates and methodologies), and skilled communication (practised in group discussion and written assessment). It promotes a veritable cornucopia of graduate attributes. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Lukas Engelmann
Tel: (0131 6)50 6367
Email: |
Course secretary | Mr Ewen Miller
Tel: (0131 6)50 3925
Email: |
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